Weapons safety rule #2: “Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot.” http://t.co/tAtnqaOvW5 pic.twitter.com/Y3mdBsuiWZ

— Paul Szoldra (@PaulSzoldra) August 12, 2014

You may remember this LGF post from last August, when Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in street protests after the shooting death of Michael Brown: FAA Shuts Down Airspace Over Ferguson at Request of Police.

At the time, St. Louis County and Ferguson police said the 12-day flight restriction was for the safety of law enforcement personnel, including police helicopters. I wrote:

Last night, police ordered media to leave the area. Is this [FAA restriction] really out of concern for safety, or an attempt to keep media from watching what’s going on in Ferguson for the next 6 days? It’s an unusual step, to say the least; normally police helicopters and media helicopters are able to share airspace in areas like this without fear of accidents.

For the record, more than a few people pooh-poohed this idea and suggested it was a conspiracy theory. But today we’ve learned, just as I surmised, that in fact this restriction was intended to keep media out of the area.

On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area — but ban others.

“They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out,” said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. “But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAA’s Kansas City center said police “did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn’t want media in there.” …

“There is really … no option for a TFR that says, you know, ‘OK, everybody but the media is OK,’” he said. The managers then worked out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.